Combat
Main Page | Combat | Buildings | Technology | Shipmasters | Events Early Game Combat In the early game you only want to concern yourself with building 2 ships. My suggestion on these 2 ships is Warships & Caravels, and here is why. You want to have a good damage dealing unit, for this we choose Warships, warships do pretty decent damage, especially when you consider there damage and attack per point of leadership. The other reason we choose them is because they can have the Fast Scout (FS), ability researched. Having FS researched, allows your Warships to attack round 1, reguardless to whether they are in range or not. Early game this is huge, and also a very big deal for farming monsters. This allows you to take out most enemies before they can even touch you. When facing easy to average enemies, even tho these first round hits only do 50% damage they will take out entire stacks, meaning no losses on your end. Even if they don’t take out all the stacks round 1, the enemies forces get greatly diminished before they can even get a shot off, meaning less losses. Remember that getting FS is key to this strategy. Caravels are the next ship we concern ourselves with because we need a “tank unit” for those medium to tough battles. You will use these to take hits for your Warships. We want tank ships to go before our damage ships, that’s why we choose Caravels, they have high initiativ, keeping them at the front of the battle, ahead of your warships. We don’t choose Cogs, because they get smoke screen, and ranged units will ignore them the first round, causing your warships to get hit, and the same, everytime smoke screen pops. Caravels also have the 2nd highest load per point of leadership, making them great for gathering, or getting the best haul from raiding players, after you’ve taken out their armies, if they still have rss. The other reason we only want to focus on 2 ships, is because of upgrades, talents, and equipment enhancement. When you first start off, you don’t want to be trying to upgrade everything evenly. You want to upgrade just the 2 ships, as rss, talent points, and equipment materials are limited. Having 3 upgrades, 25 talent points and +3 +3 equipment upgrades on 1 or 2 ships, is better than having 1 upgrade, 10 talent points, and +1 +1 on all ships. This also makes it so you are only using rss to build 2 types of ships, and only maintain fleets based off of them. You want to keep enough ships to fill your wall slots, and all your march slots with these ships. You’ll prolly want enough to cover 1 extra Fleet, for any deaths or repairs you might need to make. Using the right tier of ship, is just as important as the right type of ship. If you are facing hard battles that you need top tier ships (the highest tier available to you), then use top tier ships. If you are farming (repeated battles), whether it’s monsters or players, and you are taking constant small losses like (10) from each stack while you are hitting a player, or (20) from hitting monsters, then try switching to a lower tier. If you have buffs up, a strong shipmaster and Fight Talents, you can probably beat a target you are repeatedly hitting with T1 Warships. Try it out, you might be surprised. Losing or having to heal 30-50 T1s is a lot better and cheaper than losing or having to repair 10-20 T4s. Remember those warships essentially have “first strike” with the Fast Scout ability researched. You will also want to build some T1 Caravels for gathering from rss nodes on the world map. Chances are you won’t be using your best shipmaster to gather, you will be using a low level, or one species to perform gathering at a better pace than your top fighting shipmaster. Don’t chance someone coming along, and not only killing off good ships, because their shipmaster was better than yours and send all your ships to the deep. You will not only be out the rss from the node, but also out a bunch of costly rss from the ships that died, or got damaged. Don‘t just click auto for every battle. Ship types, upgrades, formations are all very important. Just like in real life combat, placement can make a huge difference in the outcome of a battle. Learn to setup your Array, and use those presets wisely. Defense Tactics In order to setup your defense, you must guesstimate your average opponent. If you feel you have the ability to have a strong defense, then setup strpong shipmasters, with strong fleets/setups, and good abilities. You might get hit a few times, the opponents will give up if you have a strong defense. You will almost always want to have a Caracel and Warship mix setup in each slot to defend, you don’t know what’s coming at you, someone could send all cogs to counter your warships, or they might send a decent fleet, where you need to have some tanks to turn the tide of battle. When attacking you can see what’s going on and adjust, when defending, your chances are higher that you won’t be there to see it, and make adjustmenus. Play smart, not cocky. However, on the the other side, of you have a weak fleet, then you can also setup a defense that will deter, or atleast cost your opponents a lot to hit you, and they might just give up because it costs too much. If you are weak, and can’t bubble, port away, or get reinforcements, then follow this strategy. Setup your wall slots with all your tier 1 fodder that you use for gathering, or repeat battle farming. The preference here, if you are very weak is to have t1 cogs, enough to fill your wall 2-3 times for each slot on the wall, because they will smoke screen and survive thru the first round atleast. This allows your shipmaster to get off a Damage Ability. If you have FS, and some T1 warships, then either setup all with the T1 Warshios, or a mix of T1 Warships with T1 Caravels. We aren’t looking to protect the T1 Warships tho, so it’s not a big deal to skip the Caravels for all out glass cannon defense. You will want some cannons made, T1 Warships with FS in all the slots, and the shipmasters assigned to defend, to have damage abilities in the first skill slot. This will ensure that they will have to kill all your T1 fodder, before they hit your good ships, either at the default defense, or your good shipmaster in the last slot, setup with defense. This strategy will see them take the maximum amount of damage to hit you. Each time they attack, they have to get hit by cannons, a shipmaster skill, and preferably some first strike hits from your warships. At the very least, this way you can make it hurt to zero you. The exception to this is during Phantom Fleet Event. Your troops do not die, so if you have the troops to fill all the spots on your wall, then do so. Always put your best Shipmaster in the last spot however, because it will be easier for your best one to play Cleanup, if you can take out some of the wave, before it gets to them. General Defense Disclaimer Do not have a bunch of ships sitting in your base. This makes you a target during kill events. All you will accomplish is feeding the other players, and making it hard for those competing in the event, in our alliance, harder. This will also bring those players back to hit you again for points. You are also wasting a lot of resources by constantly producing useless ships, that end up just being points for other players, and wasted resources for yourself, that could’ve been used to upgrade. If you have a lot of excess ships, please come to me, and we will talk about getting rid of them. One of the best ways to get rid of them permanently, and not just sent to be repaired from being attacked, is to throw them at a Mystery Island, during that event. This way you are getting rid of feeder points. Late Game Combat Once you reach CH 22+, you can start to diversify, Adding in Ships like Battleships, Cogs and Carracks. The rest of the ships, I wouldn’t concern yourself with for now. Again having a few great types of ships, is better than having a bunch of mediocre types.